8 Theories About Reality That Make You Question Everything

3. Transcension Hypothesis

The Transcension Hypothesis is basically an attempt to answer the questions posed in Fermi's Paradox, that is, if the universe is so huge and so old, where are all the alien civilisations that should have developed in it?

The Transcension Hypothesis puts forwards the idea that a sufficiently advanced civilisation might reach the point where they are effectively able to leave the universe as we know it. This would explain why we have been unable to detect any advanced alien races, because everyone gets the hell outta dodge after a certain point after the "technological singularity" (although the debate still rages as to whether that's actually a thing).

The idea is partially based on Moore's Law, the principle that technology gets half the size and twice as fast approximately every two years. Following this to its logical conclusion, you end up with an ultra advanced, miniaturised society.

You could well end up with virtual minds existing at the microscopic levels. Rather than continuing to expand outwards, which is our current benchmark for technological advancement (i.e. We have been further into space than our predecessors, ergo we are more advanced), we may begin to expand inwards. That is, cramming more technology, more memory, more processing, more of us into a smaller and smaller space.

The effect of could be that, because an entire civilisation exists on less than the head of a nano-pin, their existence in physical space becomes negligible, or at least irrelevant.

An extreme interpretation of this is that these conditions create a black hole-like environment and the civilisation literally disappears from our physical reality.